Excel Dashboards and Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
n Learn to: • Analyze data and report it in a way that makes sense • Slice and dice data from different perspectives • Create eye-catching and understandable reports, visualizations, and dashboards • Automate redundant reporting Excel ® Dashboards & Reports 2nd Edition Making Everyth ing Easier! ™ • • • • • • • • Make the move to dashboards make great reports, and build super models • Build the basics conditional formatting, and dynamic labeling • Get advanced — dig into the powerful components of Excel, including those that show trending, display performance, group data, and more • Share your work — use external data for dashboards and reports and share your work with the world • Go further — take things up a notch with more extensive chart design principles and safeguards to follow before distributing • Advanced reporting — make interactive interfaces and use macros to super-charge your reporting Start with FREE Cheat Sheets Cheat Sheets include
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Excel
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Dashboards &
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2nd Edition
by Michael Alexander
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Table of Contents
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Table of Contents
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Table of Contents
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Introduction
he term business intelligence (BI), coined by Howard Dresner of the Gartner Inc., describes the set of concepts and methods to improve business
T
decision-making by using fact-based support systems. Practically speaking, BI is what you get when you analyze raw data and turn that analysis into knowl- edge. BI can help an organization identify cost-cutting opportunities, uncover new business opportunities, recognize changing business environments, iden- tify data anomalies, and create widely accessible reports. Over the last few years, the BI concept has overtaken corporate executives who are eager to turn impossible amounts of data into knowledge. As a result of this trend, whole industries have been created. Software vendors that focus on BI and dashboarding are coming out of the woodwork. New consult- ing firms touting their BI knowledge are popping up virtually every week. And even the traditional enterprise solution providers like Business Objects and SAP are offering new BI capabilities. This need for BI has manifested itself in many forms. Most recently, it has come in the form of dashboard fever. Dashboards are reporting mechanisms that deliver business intelligence in a graphical form. Maybe you’ve been hit with dashboard fever. Or maybe your manager is hit- ting you with dashboard fever. Nevertheless, you’re probably holding this book because you’re being asked to create BI solutions (that is, dashboards) in Excel.
Although many IT managers would scoff at the thought of using Excel as a BI tool, Excel is inherently part of the enterprise BI tool portfolio. Whether or not IT managers are keen to acknowledge it, most of the data analysis and reporting done in business today is done by using a spreadsheet. There are several significant reasons to use Excel as the platform for your dashboards and reports, including the following:
✓ Tool familiarity: If you work in corporate America, you are conversant in the language of Excel. You can send even the most seasoned of senior vice presidents an Excel-based reporting tool and trust he will know what to do with it. With an Excel reporting process, your users spend less time figuring out how to use the tool and more time looking at the data.
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
✓ Built-in flexibility: With most enterprise dashboarding solutions, the capability to perform analyses outside the predefined views is either dis- abled or unavailable. How many times have you dumped enterprise-level data into Excel so you can analyze it yourself? I know I have. You can bet that if you give users an inflexible reporting mechanism, they’ll do what it takes to create their own usable reports. In Excel, features such as pivot tables, autofilters, and Form controls allow you to create mecha- nisms that don’t lock your audience into one view. And because you can have multiple worksheets in one workbook, you can give them space to do their own side analysis as needed.
✓ Rapid development: Building your own reporting capabilities in Excel can liberate you from the IT Department’s resource and time limitations.
With Excel, you can not only develop reporting mechanisms faster, but you also have the flexibility to adapt more quickly to changing requirements. ✓ Powerful data connectivity and automation capabilities: Excel is not the toy application some IT managers make it out to be. With its own native programming language and its robust object model, Excel can be used to automate processes and even connect to various data sources. With a few advanced techniques, you can make Excel a hands-off reporting mechanism that practically runs on its own.
✓ Little to no incremental costs: Not all of us can work for multibillion dollar companies that can afford enterprise-level reporting solutions. In most companies, funding for new computers and servers is limited, let alone funding for expensive BI reporting packages. For those companies, leveraging Microsoft Office is frankly the most cost-effective way to deliver key business reporting tools without compromising too deeply on usability and functionality. All that being said, there are so many reporting functions and tools in Excel that it’s difficult to know where to start. Enter your humble author, spirited into your hands via this book. Here, I show you how you can turn Excel into your own personal BI tool. With a few fundamentals and some of the new BI functionality Microsoft has included in this latest version of Excel, you can go from reporting data with simple tables to creating meaningful reporting components that are sure to wow management.
About This Book
The goal of this book is to show you how to leverage Excel functionality to build and manage better reporting mechanisms. Each chapter in this book provides a comprehensive review of the technical and analytical concepts
Introduction
that help you create better reporting components — components that can be used for both dashboards and reports. It’s important to note that this book is not a guide to visualizations or dashboarding best practices — although those subjects are worthy of their own book. This book is focused on the technical aspects of using Excel’s various tools and functionality and applying them to reporting.
The chapters in this book are designed to be stand-alone chapters that you can selectively refer to as needed. As you move through this book, you’ll be able to create increasingly sophisticated dashboard and report components. After reading this book, you’ll be able to:
✓ Analyze large amounts of data and report them in a meaningful way ✓ Get better visibility into data from different perspectives ✓ Quickly slice data into various views on the fly ✓ Automate redundant reporting and analyses ✓ Create interactive reporting processes
Foolish Assumptions
I make three assumptions about you as the reader: ✓ I assume you’ve already installed Microsoft Excel.
✓ I assume you have some familiarity with the basic concepts of data analysis such as working with tables, aggregating data, and performing calculations. ✓ I assume you have a strong grasp of basic Excel concepts such as man- aging table structures, creating formulas, referencing cells, filtering, and sorting.
Icons Used In This Book
As you read this book, you’ll see icons in the margins that indicate material of interest (or not, as the case may be).This section briefly describes each icon in this book. Tips are nice because they help you save time or perform some task without a lot of extra work. The tips in this book are time-saving techniques or pointers to resources that you should try to get the maximum benefit from Excel.
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Try to avoid doing anything marked with a Warning icon, which (as you might expect) represents a danger of one sort or another. Whenever you see this icon, think advanced tip or technique. You might find these tidbits of useful information just too boring for words, or they could contain the solution you need to get a program running. Skip these bits of information whenever you like. If you don’t get anything else out of a particular chapter or section, remember the material marked by this icon. This text usually contains an essential process or a bit of information you ought to remember.
Beyond the Book
A lot of extra content that you won’t find in this book is available at . Go online to find the following: ✓ Excel files used in the examples in this book can be found at
This book contains a lot of exercises in which you create and modify tables and Excel workbook files. If you want to follow the exercise but don’t have time to, say, create your own data table, just download the data from the Dummies.com website at . The files are organized by chapter. ✓ Online articles covering additional topics at
Here you’ll find out how to use conditional formatting to build a simple but effective waffle chart, add an extra dynamic layer of analysis to your charts, and create dynamic labels, among other details to aid you in your Excel dashboards journey.
✓ The Cheat Sheet for this book is at Here you’ll find an extra look at how you can use fancy fonts like
Wingdings and Webdings to add visualizations to your dashboards and reports. You’ll also find a list of websites you can visit to get ideas and fresh new perspectives on building dashboards. ✓ Updates to this book, if we have any, are also available at
Introduction Where to Go from Here
It’s time to start your Excel dashboarding adventure! If you’re a complete dashboard novice, start with Chapter 1 and progress through the book at a pace that allows you to absorb as much of the material as possible. If you’re an Excel whiz, you could possibly skip to Part III, which covers advanced topics.
Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Part I Getting Started with Excel
Dashboards and Reports Go to for great Dummies content online. In this part . . .
✓ Discover how to think about your data in terms of creating effective dashboards and reports. ✓ Get a solid understanding of the fundamentals and basic ground rules for creating effective dashboards and reports. ✓ Uncover the best practices for setting up the source data for your dashboards and reports. ✓ Explore the key Excel functions that help you build effective dashboard models.
Chapter 1 Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind In This Chapter
▶ Comparing dashboards to reports ▶ Getting started on the right foot ▶ Dashboarding best practices
n his song, “New York State of Mind,” Billy Joel laments the differences between California and New York. In this homage to the Big Apple, he
I implies a mood and a feeling that comes with thinking about New York.
I admit it’s a stretch, but I’ll extend this analogy to Excel — don’t laugh. In Excel, the differences between building a dashboard and creating standard table-driven analyses are as great as the differences between California and New York. To approach a dashboarding project, you truly have to get into the dashboard state of mind. As you’ll come to realize in the next few chapters, dashboarding requires far more preparation than standard Excel analyses. It calls for closer communication with business leaders, stricter data modeling techniques, and the following of certain best practices. It’s beneficial to have a base familiarity with fundamental dashboarding concepts before venturing off into the mechanics of building a dashboard.
In this chapter, you get a solid understanding of these basic dashboard concepts and design principles as well as what it takes to prepare for a dashboarding project.
Defining Dashboards and Reports
It isn’t difficult to use report and dashboard interchangeably. In fact, the line between reports and dashboards frequently gets muddied. I’ve seen countless reports referred to as dashboards just because they included a few charts. Likewise, I’ve seen many examples of what could be considered dashboards but have been called reports.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports Now this may all seem like semantics to you, but it’s helpful to clear the air a
bit and understand the core attributes of what are considered to be reports and dashboards.
Defining reports Reports are probably the most common application of business intelligence.
A report can be described as a document that contains data used for reading or viewing. It can be as simple as a data table or as complex as a subtotaled view with interactive drill downs, similar to Excel’s Subtotal or pivot table functionality.
The key attribute of a report is that it doesn’t lead a reader to a predefined conclusion. Although a report can include analysis, aggregations, and even charts, reports often allow for the end users to apply their own judgment and analysis to the data.
To clarify this concept, Figure 1-1 shows an example of a report. This report shows the National Park overnight visitor statistics by period. Although this data can be useful, it’s clear this report isn’t steering the reader in any predefined judgment or analysis; it’s simply presenting the aggregated data.
Figure 1-1:
Reports present data for viewing but don’t lead readers to conclusions.
Chapter 1: Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind Defining dashboards A dashboard is a visual interface that provides at-a-glance views into key
measures relevant to a particular objective or business process. Dashboards have three main attributes: ✓ Dashboards are typically graphical in nature, providing visualizations that help focus attention on key trends, comparisons, and exceptions. ✓ Dashboards often display only data that are relevant to the goal of the dashboard. ✓ Because dashboards are designed with a specific purpose or goal, they inherently contain predefined conclusions that relieve the end user from performing his own analysis. Figure 1-2 illustrates a dashboard that uses the same data shown in Figure 1-1. This dashboard displays key information about the National Park overnight visitor stats. As you can see, this presentation has all the main attributes that define a dashboard. First, it’s a visual display that allows you to quickly recognize the overall trending of the overnight visitor stats. Second, you can see that not all the detailed data is shown here — only the key pieces of information relevant to support the goal of this dashboard. Finally, by virtue of its objective, this dashboard effectively presents you with analysis and conclusions about the trending of overnight visitors.
Figure 1-2:
Dashboards provide at-a-glance views into key measures relevant to a particular objective or business process.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports Preparing for Greatness Imagine your manager asks you to create a dashboard that tells him
everything he should know about monthly service subscriptions. Do you jump to action and slap together whatever comes to mind? Do you take a guess at what he wants to see and hope it’s useful? These questions sound ridiculous, but such situations happen more than you think. I’m constantly called to create the next great reporting tool but am rarely provided the time to gather the true requirements for it. Between limited information and unrealistic deadlines, the end product often ends up being unused or having little value.
This brings me to one of the key steps in preparing for dashboarding — collecting user requirements. In the non-IT world of the Excel analyst, user requirements are practically useless because of sudden changes in project scope, constantly changing priorities, and shifting deadlines. The gathering of user requirements is viewed to be a lot of work and a waste of valuable time in the ever-changing business environment. But as I mention at the start of this chapter, it’s time to get into the dashboard state of mind. Consider how many times a manager has asked you for an analysis and then said “No, I meant this.” Or, “Now that I see it, I realize I need this.” As frustrat- ing as this can be for a single analysis, imagine running into it again and again during the creation of a complex dashboard with several data integration processes. The question is, would you rather spend your time on the front end gathering user requirements or spend time painstakingly redesigning the dashboard you’ll surely come to hate? The process of gathering user requirements doesn’t have to be an overly complicated or formal one. Here are some simple things you can do to ensure you have a solid idea of the purpose of the dashboard.
Establish the audience and purpose
for the dashboardChances are your manager has been asked to create the reporting mechanism, and he has passed the task to you. Don’t be afraid to ask about the source of the initial request. Talk to the requestors about what they’re really asking for. Discuss the purpose of the dashboard and the triggers that caused them to ask for a dashboard in the first place. You may find, after discussing the matter, that a simple Excel report meets their needs, foregoing the need for a full-on dashboard.
Chapter 1: Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind If a dashboard is indeed warranted, talk about who the end users are. Take
some time to meet with a few of the end users to talk about how they’d use the dashboard. Will the dashboard be used as a performance tool for regional managers? Will the dashboard be used to share data with external customers? Talking through these fundamentals with the right people helps align your thoughts and avoids the creation of a dashboard that doesn’t fulfill the necessary requirements.
Delineate the measures for the dashboard
Most dashboards are designed around a set of measures, or key performance
indicators (KPIs). A KPI is an indicator of the performance of a task deemed
to be essential to daily operations or processes. The idea is that a KPI reveals performance that is outside the normal range for a particular measure, so it therefore often signals the need for attention and intervention. Although the measures you place into your dashboards may not officially be called KPIs, they undoubtedly serve the same purpose — to draw attention to problem areas.
The topic of creating effective KPIs for your organization is a subject worthy of its own book and is out of the scope of this endeavor. For a detailed guide on KPI development strategies, pick up David Parmenter’s Key Performance
Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs (John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.). This book provides an excellent step-by-step approach to developing and implementing KPIs. The measures used on a dashboard should absolutely support the initial purpose of that dashboard. For example, if you’re creating a dashboard focused on supply chain processes, it may not make sense to have human resources headcount data incorporated. It’s generally good practice to avoid nice-to-know data in your dashboards simply to fill white space or because the data is available. If the data doesn’t support the core purpose of the dashboard, leave it out. Here’s another tip: When gathering the measures required for the dashboard, I find that it often helps to write a sentence to describe the measure needed. For example, instead of simply adding the word Revenue into my user require- ments, I write what I call a component question, such as, “What is the overall revenue trend for the last two years?” I call it a component question because I intend to create a single component, such as a chart or a table, to answer the question. For instance, if the component question is, “What is the overall revenue trend for the last two years?” you can imagine a chart component answering that question by showing the two-year revenue trend. I sometimes take this a step further and actually incorporate the component questions into a mock layout of the dashboard to get a high-level sense of the data the dashboard will require. Figure 1-3 illustrates an example.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports Figure 1-3: Each box in
this dash- board layout mockup represents a component and the type of data required to create the measures.
Each box in this dashboard layout mockup represents a component on the dashboard and its approximate position. The questions within each box provide a sense of the types of data required to create the measures for the dashboard.
Catalog the required data sources
When you have the list of measures that need to be included on the dashboard, it’s important to take a tally of the available systems to determine if the data required to produce those measures are available. Ask yourself the following questions:
✓ Do you have access to the data sources necessary? ✓ How often are those data sources refreshed? ✓ Who owns and maintains those data sources? ✓ What are the processes to get the data from those resources? ✓ Does the data even exist?
These are all questions you need answered when negotiating dashboard development time, data refresh intervals, and change management. Conventional wisdom says that the measures on your dashboard shouldn’t be governed by the availability of data. Instead, you should let dashboard KPIs and measures govern the data sources in your organization. Although I agree with the spirit of that statement, I’ve been involved in too many dashboard projects that have fallen apart because of lack of data. Real-world experience has taught me the difference between the ideal and the ordeal.
Chapter 1: Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind If your organizational strategy requires that you collect and measure data
that is nonexistent or not available, press pause on the dashboard project and turn your attention to creating a data collection mechanism that will get the data you need.
Define the dimensions and filters for the dashboard
In the context of reporting, a dimension is a data category used to organize business data. Examples of dimensions are Region, Market, Branch, Manager, or Employee. When you define a dimension in the user requirements stage of development, you’re determining how the measures should be grouped or distributed. For example, if your dashboard should report data by employee, you need to ensure that your data collection and aggregation processes include employee detail. As you can imagine, adding a new dimension after the dashboard is built can get complicated, especially when your processes require many aggregations across multiple data sources. The bottom line is that locking down the dimensions for a dashboard early in the process definitely saves you headaches. Along those same lines, you want to get a clear sense of the types of filters that are required. In the context of dashboards, filters are mechanisms that allow you to narrow the scope of the data to a single dimension. For example, you can filter on Year, Employee, or Region. Again, if you don’t account for a particular filter while building your dashboarding process, you’ll likely be forced into an unpleasant redesign of both your data collection processes and your dashboard.
If you’re confused by the difference between dimensions and filters, think about a simple Excel table. A dimension is like a column of data (such as a column containing employee names) in an Excel table. A filter, then, is the mechanism that allows you to narrow your table to show only the data for a particular employee. For example, if you apply Excel’s AutoFilter to the employee column, you are building a filter mechanism into your table.
Determine the need for drill-down features
Many dashboards provide drill-down features that allow users to “drill” into the details of a specific measure. You want to get a clear understanding of the types of drill-downs your users have in mind. To most users, drill-down feature means the ability to get a raw data table supporting the measures shown on the dashboard. Although getting raw data isn’t always practical or possible, discussing these requests will at a minimum allow you to talk to your users about additional reporting, links to other data sources, and other solutions that may help them get the data they need.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports Establish the refresh schedule A refresh schedule refers to the schedule by which a dashboard is updated to
show the latest information available. Because you’re the one responsible for building and maintaining the dashboard, you should have a say in the refresh schedules — your manager may not know what it takes to refresh the dash- board in question.
While you’re determining the refresh schedule, keep in mind the refresh rates of the different data sources whose measures you need to get. You can’t refresh your dashboard any faster than your data sources. Also, negotiate enough development time to build macros that aid in automation of redundant and time-consuming refresh tasks.
A Quick Look at Dashboard Design Principles
When collecting user requirements for your dashboarding project, there’s a heavy focus on the data aspects of the dashboard: The types of data needed, the dimensions of data required, the data sources to be used, and so on. This is a good thing — without solid data processes, your dashboards won’t be effec- tive or maintainable. That being said, here’s another aspect to your dashboard- ing project that calls for the same fervor in preparation: the design aspect.
Excel users live in a world of numbers and tables, not visualization and design. Your typical Excel analysts have no background in visual design and are often left to rely on their own visual instincts to design their dash- boards. As a result, most Excel-based dashboards have little thought given to effective visual design, often resulting in overly cluttered and ineffective user interfaces.
The good news is that dashboarding has been around for such a long time that there’s a vast knowledge base of prescribed visualization and dashboard design principles. Many of these principles seem like common sense; even so, these are concepts that Excel users don’t often find themselves thinking about. Because this chapter is about getting into the dashboard state of mind, I break that trend and review a few dashboard design principles that improve the look and feel of your Excel dashboards.
Many of the concepts in this section come from the work of Stephen Few, visu- alization expert and author of several books and articles on dashboard design principles. This book is primarily focused on the technical aspects of building reporting components in Excel, but this section offers a high-level look at dash- board design. If you find that you’re captivated by the subject, feel free to visit Stephen Few’s website at
Chapter 1: Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind Rule number 1: Keep it simple Dashboard design expert, Stephen Few, has the mantra, “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.” The basic idea is that dashboards cluttered with too many mea-
sures or too much eye candy can dilute the significant information you’re trying to present. How many times has someone told you that your reports look “busy”? In essence, this complaint means that too much is going on in the page or screen, making it hard to see the actual data.
Here are a few actions you can take to ensure simpler and more effective dashboard designs.
Don’t turn your dashboard into a data repository
Admit it. You include as much information onto a report as possible, primarily to avoid being asked for additional information. We all do it. But in the dash- board state of mind, you have to fight the urge to force every piece of data available onto your dashboards.
Overwhelming users with too much data can cause them to lose sight of the primary goal of the dashboard and focus on inconsequential data. The measures used on a dashboard should support the initial purpose of that dashboard. Avoid the urge to fill white space for the sake of symmetry and appearances. Don’t include nice-to-know data just because the data is avail- able. If the data doesn’t support the core purpose of the dashboard, leave it out.
Avoid the fancy formatting
The key to communicating effectively with your dashboards is to present your data as simply as possible. There’s no need to wrap it in eye candy to make it more interesting. It’s okay to have a dashboard with little to no color or formatting. You’ll find that the lack of fancy formatting only serves to call attention to the actual data. Focus on the data and not the shiny happy graphics. Here are a few guidelines:
✓ Avoid using colors or background fills to partition your dashboards.
Colors, in general, should be used sparingly, reserved for providing information about key data points. For example, assigning the colors red, yellow, and green to measures traditionally indicates performance level. Adding these colors to other sections of your dashboard only serves to distract your audience. ✓ De-emphasize borders, backgrounds, and other elements that define
dashboard areas. Try to use the natural white space between your com-
ponents to partition your dashboard. If borders are necessary, format them to hues lighter than the ones you’ve used for your data. Light grays are typically ideal for borders. The idea is to indicate sections without distracting from the information displayed.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports
✓ Avoid applying fancy effects such as gradients, pattern fills, shadows,
glows, soft edges, and other formatting. Excel 2007 makes it easy to
apply effects that make everything look shiny, glittery, and generally happy. Although these formatting features make for great marketing tools, they don’t do your reporting mechanisms any favors. ✓ Don’t try to enhance your dashboards with clip art or pictures. Not only do they do nothing to further data presentation, they often just look tacky.
Limit each dashboard to one printable page
Dashboards, in general, should provide at-a-glance views into key measures relevant to particular objectives or business processes. This implies that all the data is immediately viewable on the one page. Although including all your data on one page isn’t always the easiest thing to do, there’s much ben- efit to being able to see everything on one page or screen. You can compare sections more easily, you can process cause and effect relationships more effectively, and you rely less on short-term memory. When a user has to scroll left, right, or down, these benefits are diminished. Furthermore, users tend to believe that when information is placed out of normal view (areas that require scrolling), it’s somehow less important.
But what if you can’t fit all the data on one sheet? First, review the measures on your dashboard and determine if they really need to be there. Next, format your dashboard to use less space (format fonts, reduce white space, and adjust column and row widths). Finally, try adding interactivity to your dashboard, allowing users to dynamically change views to show only those measures that are relevant to them.
Use layout and placement to draw focus
As I discuss earlier in this chapter, only measures that support the dashboard’s utility and purpose should be included on the dashboard. However, it should be said that just because all measures on your dashboard are significant, they may not always have the same level of importance. In other words, you’ll frequently want one component of your dashboard to stand out from the others.
Instead of using bright colors or exaggerated sizing differences, you can leverage location and placement to draw focus to the most important components on your dashboard. Various studies have shown that readers have a natural tendency to focus on particular regions of a document. For example, researchers at the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack III project have found that readers view various regions on a screen in a certain order, paying particular attention to specific regions onscreen. They use the diagram in Figure 1-4 to illustrate what they call
Chapter 1: Getting in the Dashboard State of Mind
priority zones. Regions with the number 1 in the diagram seem to have high
prominence, attracting the most attention for longer periods of time.Meanwhile, number 3 regions seem to have low prominence.
Figure 1-4:
Studies show that users pay particular attention to the upper- left and mid- dle-left of a document.
You can leverage these priority zones to promote or demote certain components based on significance. If one of the charts on your dashboard warrants special focus, you can simply place that chart in a region of prominence. Note that surrounding colors, borders, fonts, and other formatting can affect the viewing patterns of your readers, de-emphasizing a previously high prominence region.
Format numbers effectively
There will undoubtedly be lots of numbers on your dashboards. Some of them will be in charts, and others will be in tables. Remember that every piece of information on your dashboard should have a reason for being there. It’s important that you format your numbers effectively to allow your users to understand the information they represent without confusion or hindrance. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when formatting the numbers on your dashboards and reports:
✓ Always use commas to make numbers easier to read. For example, instead of 2345, show 2,345. ✓ Only use decimal places if that level of precision is required. For instance, there’s rarely a benefit for showing the decimal places in a dollar amount, such as $123.45. In most cases, the $123 will suffice. Likewise in percentages, use only the minimum number of decimals required to represent the data effectively. For example instead of 43.21%, you may be able to get away with 43%.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports
✓ Only use the dollar symbol when you need to clarify that you’re
referring to monetary values. If you have a chart or table that contains
all revenue values, and there’s a label clearly stating this, you can save room and pixels by leaving out the dollar symbol. ✓ Format very large numbers to the thousands or millions place. For instance, instead of displaying 16,906,714, you can format the number to read 17M. In Chapter 3 of this book, you explore how to leverage number formatting tricks to enhance the readability of your dashboards and reports.
Use titles and labels effectively
It’s common sense, but many people often fail to label items on dashboards effectively. If your manager looks at your dashboard and asks you, “What is this telling me?” you likely have labeling issues. Here are a few guidelines for effective labeling on your dashboards and reports:
✓ Always include a timestamp on your reporting mechanisms. This minimizes confusion when distributing the same dashboard or report in monthly or weekly installments. ✓ Always include some text indicating when the data for the measures
was retrieved. In many cases, the timing of the data is a critical piece of information when analyzing a measure.
✓ Use descriptive titles for each component on your dashboard. This allows users to clearly identify what they’re looking at. Be sure to avoid cryptic titles with lots of acronyms and symbols. ✓ Although it may seem counterintuitive, it’s generally good practice
to de-emphasize labels by formatting them to hues lighter than the ones used for your data. Lightly colored labels give your users the
information they need without distracting them from the information displayed. Ideal colors for labels are colors commonly found in nature: soft grays, browns, blues, and greens.
Chapter 2 Building a Super Model In This Chapter
▶ Understanding the best data modeling practices ▶ Leveraging Excel functions to deliver data ▶ Creating smart tables that expand with data
ne of Excel’s most attractive features is its flexibility. You can create an intricate system of interlocking calculations, linked cells, and format-
O
ted summaries that work together to create a final analysis. However, years of experience has brought me face to face with an ugly truth: Excel is like the cool gym teacher that lets you do anything you want — the freedom can be fun, but a lack of structure in your data models can lead to some serious headaches in the long run. What’s a data model? A data model provides the foundation upon which your reporting mechanism is built. When you build a spreadsheet that imports, aggregates, and shapes data, you’re essentially building a data model that feeds your dashboards and reports.
Creating a poorly designed data model can mean hours of manual labor maintaining and refreshing your reporting mechanisms. On the other hand, creating an effective model allows you to easily repeat monthly reporting processes without damaging your reports or your sanity.
The goal of this chapter is to show you the concepts and techniques that help you build effective data models. In this chapter, you discover that creating a successful reporting mechanism requires more than slapping data onto a spreadsheet. Although you see how to build cool dashboard components in later chapters, those components won’t do you any good if you can’t effectively manage your data models. On that note, let’s get started.
Part I: Getting Started with Excel Dashboards and Reports Data Modeling Best Practices Building an effective model isn’t as complicated as you may think. It’s pri-
marily a matter of thinking about your reporting processes differently. Most people spend very little time thinking about the supporting data model behind a reporting process. If they think about it at all, they usually start by imagining a mockup of the finished dashboard and work backward from there.
Instead of seeing just the finished dashboard in your head, try to think of the end-to-end process. Where will you get the data? How should the data be structured? What analysis will need to be performed? How will the data be fed to the dashboard? How will the dashboard be refreshed? Obviously the answers to these questions are highly situation specific. However, some data modeling best practices will guide you to a new way of thinking about your reporting process. These are discussed in the next few sections.
Separating data, analysis, and presentation